Oakland A’s Clinch AL West

The 2020 Major League Baseball season has been a whirlwind full of surprises thus far. One of these surprises is that the Oakland Athletics become the first team in Major League Baseball to clinch a division this season. Although they have a strong team with top-level pitching, almost no one expected them to take the baseball world by storm, with a 33-20 record with just seven games to go in the regular season. The AL West is certainly not the toughest division in the league, as the second place team, the Houston Astros, have an even .500 winning percentage, at 27-27. The A’s took advantage of this, as their great relief pitching led the charge. Yusmeiro Petit, J.B. Wendelken, and Jake Diekman have been their best arms out of the bullpen, as all three have sub-2 earned run averages. Their veteran closer, Liam Hendriks, has continued his success from the 2019 season, as he is sporting a 1.23 ERA with 13 saves. Even though the A’s have had an incredible run thus far, I do not think that they will go far in Postseason play. Their starting pitching has been far from stellar this year, and their team batting average sits at a lowly .226, which ranks at 13th out of the 15 American League teams. This lack in offense and starting pitching will put too much pressure on their bullpen, which has carried the load thus far. Anything is possible in playoff baseball, but I do not see them making a deep playoff run, especially with the expanded playoff format that Major League Baseball implemented before this season.